


renat; shattered peaks

by erasvita



Category: Those Who Went Missing
Genre: Gen, TWWM, esk, mountain biome event, renat - Freeform, renat fixes the shrine, renat is cursed, renat leaves the shrine untouched, shattered peaks, what dwells beneath the canopy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 12:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18031364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erasvita/pseuds/erasvita
Summary: mountain biome eventcompanion tocompanion art





	1. what dwells beneath the canopy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [mountain biome event](https://sta.sh/0kwawo1v8wh)  
> companion to [companion art](https://sta.sh/0xojkqvxtia)

Outside it was raining, huge drops of water that pitter-pattered noisily against the greenhouse panels and turned the world bleak and gray. The floorboards creaked as he shifted his weight, peering through the grime and dust to look out.

For a moment, all he did was watch the rain sliding down the glass pane, pooling into the decrepit building through cracks. His own reflection stared back at him in the glass: dark, smudged, forlorn. His eyes were unblinking, dark pools that refused to betray any emotions lying just below their surface.  
Not that there were many emotions to betray. Inside he was hollow, unfeeling, uncaring, as if waiting for something to happen but slowly losing hope that it would. He was in no particular rush to do anything, be anything: he was content only to stay in his old attic and watch the world through a grime-coated window. Day in and day out it was the same routine. Much like the forgotten keepsakes and gardening tools tossed years ago in his boundary, Renat was confined to a life of nostalgia and uselessness.

Unlike the tools, it was in his power to change his circumstances, to alter the course of fate and even, in a sense, turn back time.

He simply could not find it within himself to do so.

After a moment he turned away from the window, laying his body across the windowsill. Petals of dried lavender floated in the air all around him, alongside particles of dust and wisps of long dead memories. The rain was a drum beating against the window, lulling him into an almost-sleep…

...His eyes flickered, the nictitating membrane sliding back and forth with an audible click…

The rain subsided to a dull roar in the background, as if he were hearing it through a tunnel. His head grew thick and fuzzy, his eyes progressively heavier - he was in that blurry half-awake state, his body feeling as though it were floating serenely into nothingness.

And then there was pressure, a feeling of being _pulled_ through space, passing through a hole made far too small for himself. He was frozen, paralyzed, transfixed - powerless to stop it, unsure if he even desired to. Everything was spinning, around and around and around until -

\- it stopped as suddenly as it had started.

When the world righted itself again and his vision cleared, he found himself to be no longer in the greenhouse.

Fog curled at the edges of his vision, always teasing him just out of sight; whenever he turned, wherever he looked, all he saw was an endless sea of green. Trees towered overhead, sheets of vines and moss hanging down like drapes and enclosing him on all sides.

Sunlight flooded in uneven streams through the dense forest canopy, leaving intermittent patches of dusty light in its wake. Renat blinked, the protective eyelid sliding across his eye again.

_Where am I?_

He climbed slowly to his feet, feeling the dirt beneath his feet. It was a strange sensation; he still was not used to these new feet of his, nor the feeling of the earth; he had spent so long in his attic, floorboards the only thing he’d tread upon since his transformation. He flexes his toes into the damp ground, feeling the soil give way underfoot.

Something was amiss, a deep unsettling feeling taking root within him. One by one, every petal of dried lavender falls from the air around him, collecting at his feet, turning it dust and disappearing. The sprigs above his head, in his tail, woven into his hair; all of them vanish as if into thin air. He is plain, barren; the air around him suddenly does not seem quite so sweet.

He shakes his head, rising to his feet.

Renat is only just beginning to survey his surroundings when it starts.

It’s a hum in his ear at first, like an annoying gnat that refuses to be swatted away. But slowly, steadily, it rises in pitch and frequency, until it occurs to him that he is not just _hearing_ the disturbance -

\- he is feeling it, too.

Looking back, he cannot explain why he answers the call, why he sends himself so willingly into the unknown, nor why the call chose him in the first place. He does not think, does not question the phenomenon; he only lets it string him along, neither willing nor unwilling, little more than a witness. The wind is a cry, pushing at him, calling to him, pleading with him, as if trying to rush him along. There is an urgency in the call, but Renat is unperturbed by it; for now.

The ground slopes beneath him, and the farther he goes, the more desperate the cry becomes. He does not notice when his footsteps begin to fall faster, and he begins to finally succumb to the urgency of the jungle. Leaves blow overhead, a stream of red against the green landscape. The higher he climbs, the faster he travels; the air thins around him, but he doesn’t know if his sudden dizziness is due to the altitude or the frenzied beating of the pull echoing deep inside of him.

He will not stop to question it. He can only climb, a mere sightseer as the ground becomes stony, sunlight breaking through the thinning canopy. Had he lungs to breathe with, they would be near to bursting; instead he is only a silent ghost, passing through with footsteps that hardly make a sound or stir the forest floor.

When at last he reaches the summit, the world goes suddenly quiet. The wind breaks and dies down, leaving an eerie silence in its absence. As Renat steps from beneath the canopy, the mountain itself seems to hold its breath and wait, anticipation filling the empty space.

The tree towers above him, above the rest of the jungle, a giant atop a mountain. Its roots fan out in every direction, vines dropping low to the ground. It sits precariously beside a cliff, with only its roots to anchor it to the mountainside; behind it the world drops sharply away, an endless sea of green and swirling fog stretching as far as the eye could see.

Renat approaches cautiously, unrushed now that the call has subsided.

 _Did you call for me?_ No sooner does the thought cross his mind does he get his answer; an invisible energy is drawing him forward, weak and unsteady. At the base of the tree sits a stone, craggy yet proud, and at its base, shattered into innumerable pieces, small and large, is its token. There’s a sense of tragedy in this place, a heaviness that drapes the mountain like a shroud. It presses in on Renat like a physical weight, engulfing him, surrounding him, threatening to suffocate him -

\- The esk hesitates, eyes unblinking, heart unfeeling, before he slowly turns away.

He does not know what brought him to this place, nor why; and he does not care enough to ask. The shrine is a mystery to him, and not a particularly compelling one. It would be easy to turn away, to forget this strange experience and to write it off as a dream. Perhaps it was for the best; he doesn’t need to meddle in something he doesn’t even understand.

Unless…

Slowly, he turns back to the shrine. It seems to cry out in despair, in desperation - _save me, fix me, heal me._

Whatever has brought him here, perhaps it had done so for a reason. This reason.

He approaches the shrine again, studying every nook, every cranny, every imperfection. The stone doesn’t seem particularly impressive or special; they’re just stones, rough and poorly carved. But the energy thrumming through them both, albeit weak, is undeniable.

Renat sits, the broken pieces scattered at his feet. The token has been broken unevenly; fragmented into chunks big and small, even and uneven. It’s impossible to make sense of them all, to find a pattern or rhythm to grasp onto. Renat looks upon them all without ever truly seeing them. He has no idea how or even where to start; and as time trickles on, he becomes less and less sure as to whether he should try.

For a long while, all the esk can do is sit and stare at the shattered pieces. The cry emanating from the rock grows gradually weaker; he feels rather than sees the tree begin to lose its energy, as if it’s will to survive is leaking out of the broken shrine. Its vines begin to curl back in upon themselves, bark splitting out until sap begins to seep out and dry in the wind.. One by one, the leaves begin to fall from the tree. The wither up and die and fall, the wind carrying them into the forest below. With every second that passes, more of the tree dies.

Still he waits; but for what, he isn’t sure.

Time continues to work against him, an hourglass that is running out of sand. Sooner or later it will be too late; the shrine is dying, every pulse of energy growing weaker, its hope and conviction dying alongside it. Silence stretches longer and longer between each call, until at last, they fail to come at all.

Still he sits and watches, unable to move himself to caring. With one last ringing cry, the token’s hold on Renat finally slips away, freeing him.

He shakes his head as if awakening from a trance, fur waving gently in the wind, and turns away. As he walks away, he tries to cast the shrine out of his mind; perhaps if he concentrates hard enough, telling himself closes his eyes and clicks his heels together three times, all of this would disappear. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…

He doesn’t see the creature trailing him, gliding on silent wings from the dying tree. All he wants is to put the strange tree and its shrine behind him.

_There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there's no place like…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Final word count: 1670**  
>  **AP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 33 AP (Writing: 1670 words)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +16 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 2)  
> +5 AP (Biome Bonus)  
>  _Total AP per submission: 59_
> 
>  **GP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 16.5 GP (Writing: 1670 words)  
> +12 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 2)  
> +2 GP (Biome Bonus)  
>  _Total GP per submission: 30.5_
> 
>  


	2. where clouds fade into snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [mountain biome event](https://sta.sh/0126ogjp94xh)  
> [companion art](https://sta.sh/0xojkqvxtia)  
> 

_There’s no place like home._

With every step he took, more distance gathered between Renat and the shrine. The world had gone eerily silent as he walked away; no longer did he hear the weeping calls beckoning forth, or feel the insistent tug on his heart. The wind had died almost entirely, so that the withered leaves made papery whispers as they collected around the base of the dying tree.  
Otherwise, the world was silent.

A shadow followed the esk, gliding on dark and silent wings, but he failed to notice. His eyes were focused only on the trail before him, one step at a time, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Perhaps if he walked far enough, or focused hard enough, he would find himself walking back through the gates to the greenhouse. Already he couldn’t wait to climb back into his attic; he had had enough adventure for today (and possibly for the next ten years, at least.) All he wanted now was to curl up on his windowsill and take a nap.

The jungle cast vivid shadows over him, turning him a strange green hue as he passed beneath the trees. Everywhere he looks is a different shade of the same color: verdant moss covering the trees, hiding their bark from view, while olive-colored leaves block out the sky and sage-colored vines trail heavily from branches. Each shrub is virescent, and it seems as he passes through the jungle that all the plant life is reaching out to him with prickly fingers, clawing at his legs, whispering at his fur, as if trying to hold him back. He can almost imagine them crying out to him, similarly as the shrine: _come back_ , they say. _You’ve made the wrong choice_ , they say. _A terribly wrong choice._

He stops in his tracks, head feeling strangely thick and full of cotton.

All around him the forest seems to be bending, tilting and warping before his very eyes. Black dots swim through his vision, obscuring the ground from view. They grow larger, begin moving faster, dizzying him and blocking out the forest around him. He can hear a dull roaring, growing progressively louder until it fills his senses and blocks out the jungle. Renat sways, his footing suddenly unsteady.

 _Can esk die?_ He finds himself thinking. If so, he imagines this is probably it: his punishment for ignoring the shrine’s cries for help, for watching the tree as it died while he sat and did nothing. It was a cruel thing, the universe: dragging him here, leading him to the shrine against his will, then punishing him when he made his own choice. But perhaps dying wouldn’t be quite so bad - he never did get a chance to die, was transformed before he knew what was happening. Maybe he had just been delaying the inevitable…

_I just want to go home._

Just when he thinks he can’t handle it anymore, it stops.

No longer is he trapped in a humid jungle, feeling suffocated and on the brink of death. Cold washes over him, lighting up his senses, jerking him unsteadily back to consciousness.

As the black clears from his vision, he finds himself no longer in a world of green, green, green - but white, white, white, stark and bright and painful to look upon.

He squints his eyes instinctually, bracing himself against the sudden cold. Wind still howls at him, sending fresh snow cascading over him. He’s not a large esk, more hair than body; the sudden onslaught nearly knocks him down, sending him tumbling backwards while still snow blinded. But he regains his footing just before falling, and slowly, _slowly_ , he begins to make out the indistinct shapes around him.

A mountainous world greets his eyes, sprawled out below him, each peak covered in blinding snow. The sky is grey, hints of light shining at the horizon, but behind him everything is dark.

With a shock, he finds himself standing in a cave, dark stone arching overhead of him and disappearing down a tunnel behind him. It’s a stark contrast to the bright white world outside, but not an entirely unwelcome one.

Renat looks back at the mountains outside, taking one step forward and into the cold -- only to step sharply backwards again as the ground falls away underfoot. Just outside the cave the world drops sharply away, a cliffside descending down into nothing. Far, far away, a dizzying distance away, a snow-blanketed forest covers a valley floor, where snow-covered mountains block it in from every direction.

Three more inches, and he may just have found himself careening through nothingness, free-falling down to that valley below.

He shudders, taking another few cautious steps backwards. The world grows steadily darker farther in the cave, as if its blocking out the sun, shielding him from the world outside.

It’s warmer inside the cave, too, he realizes. The air too, is slightly stuffy; it reminds him of his boundary, of the attic he calls his home, albeit far colder. Nonetheless, it’s better than what awaited him outside the cave. Far better.

He sinks to the ground, feeling the coldness of the stone against his belly. It seems to pulse, like a heartbeat: beating against him as he welcomes its embrace. The snow outside begins to fall steadily, the wind picking up into a dull roar that whistles past the mouth of the cave.

Renat isn’t sure why he’s been brought here, instead of back home. But before he can begin to contemplate it, the feeling from before is back -- the calling, the yearning, the tugging pull felt deep within his soul. He stumbles to his feet just in time for another howl of the wind to nearly send him back to the ground. Renat braces against it, feeling the ice and snow catch in his fur, piling its weight onto him.

Once again, he can’t question the phenomenon, can hardly resist it. It’s as if an invisible force is taking control of his body, moving his limbs for him and pushing him onward.

This time, it pushes him deeper into the cave, where the world grows darker and the air grows warmer.

All the while the wind howls, beating in time with the call, and it occurs to him that everything here seems to be drawing him forward. Overhead the wind has turned into a stream of snowflakes and fallen leaves, a continuous path guiding him on to the next shrine, blowing through the tunnel and beckoning him on.

Renat has no choice but to follow.

This time the call is stronger, its voice frenzier, as if whatever it is that’s calling him is more desperate than the last shrine he encountered. It makes his chest tremble and flutter, and as adrenaline courses through his system he finds himself answering the call in a state of hysteria. He races through the cave, chasing the wind as it sweeps through tunnel after tunnel. He runs so quickly that at times the pull at his soul seems to lessen, like a rope going slack; but then it tightens with a jerk, nearly sweeping him off his feet, and he is helpless but to follow it. Left and right, up and down; the world is so dark he can hardly see where he’s going, but it certainly feels as if he is being pulled around in circles. He leaps over boulders, scrambles up steep inclines, nearly falls and crashes as the ground slopes back down and twists all at once. But ever so subtly, the path tilts upwards more than it tilts down; and soon he is climbing, clawing his way up a rocky trail.

And in the distance is a light, growing larger and brighter with every step. It urges Renat on, promising a freedom that’s just out of reach, until -

\- He bursts from the ground itself where the tunnel ends, and surfaces back into a bright, white world.

The wind stops suddenly, dying away. Snow and leaves are left suspended for a millisecond, before falling in slow motion down to the earth, falling on a bed of wilted pine needles.

He’s not standing on a cliff, like when he was first transported to this new place. Rather, he’s standing in a grove of pine trees, and the way they shudder and sag reminds him of the tree in the forest, and how he watched it slowly die.

The call is softer here, where it cannot echo off the stone walls of the tunnel, but it is still prominent. The fallen pine needles seem to absorb some of its sound, a hush dampening the call further. Renat takes a slow and uncertain step, looking from one tree to the next. The breeze makes a half-hearted attempt to blow, as if encouraging him on.

One step at a time, he weaves through the forest. The trees loom overhead of him, their branches sweeping low, as if trying to reach him, but they all stop short. They tremble any time the wind stirs, sending a wave of pine needles fluttering down over him.

At the end of his path is another shrine, tucked away between two trees that have grown together into one. Their trunks are peeling, shedding their bark onto the forest floor around their base, while their branches droop low. Each sigh of the wind knocks more and more of their pine needles to the ground, until they are all but bare.

As Renat approaches, he sees the token shattered at the trees’ base, much like the one before. It pulses with energy, crying out to him: _save me, fix me, heal me_. Its pieces lie scattered, half buried in snow and pine needles.

The sudden wave of frustration that washes over him takes him almost completely by surprise: _what is the purpose?_ He wants to cry out into the snow. _Why have you brought me here again?_ His heart is thick with deja vu, a feeling akin to homesickness making his legs go weak. It takes all of his strength to not collapse at the shrine, but to pick at the shattered pieces with his paws. None of them seem to fit together, he can’t make sense of their pattern.

And as he sits there trying to understand, the hourglass runs out of sand, and his time is up.

The tree gives one last shudder, dropping the last of its pine needles to the ground, and then the world goes silent and dark. The surrounding trees begin to whisper around him, as if in gossip: _it’s too late, you’re too late._

He sits back, and slowly all of the desperation and frenzy of before drains slowly out of him. He is hollow, a shell of empty emotions and lost time. As if in a trance he stands, turning his back on the dead trees and their broken shrine.

 _There’s no place like home_ , he thinks defeatedly. That simple phrase becomes his mantra, as he makes a new path through the snow covered forest, looking for the way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Final word count: 1848**  
>  **AP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 36 AP (Writing: 1848 words)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +16 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 2)  
> +5 AP (Biome Bonus)  
>  _Total AP per submission: 62_
> 
>  **GP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 18 GP (Writing: 1848 words)  
> +12 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 2)  
> +2 GP (Biome Bonus)  
>  _Total GP per submission: 32_
> 
>  


	3. where the river ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [mountain biome event](https://sta.sh/01k5kzcro7x1)  
> 

For a while all he can do is stare at the shrine, its broken token lying in pieces around the base of the entwined trees. Even in retrospect, he can’t explain the feeling growing in his chest, the heavy sense of tragedy weighing proverbially on his heart. The sight of a second broken shrine disturbs him greatly; knowing he failed to save either of them disturbs him greater still.

 _Perhaps_ , the trees whisper to him, _had you saved the first, you might have saved this one?_ Regret is a foreign feeling to the esk; it sits uneasily within him, so that he feels sick in a way he cannot comprehend.

All around him the forest is still, steadily growing darker the longer he lies in the snow. As time moves on, it brings with it more clouds and shadows; it’s as if the world itself is in mourning, and he’s the one responsible for the distress.

With a sigh, he finally stands. The wind has pushed snow and fallen pine needles onto his back; with a shake of his body, he sends it all tumbling back down to the ground. But no sooner has he done so than the snow begins to start again; he supposes this, too, is his punishment. He turns away from the entwined trees at last, ignoring the snow building up atop his fur.

As Renat walks away from the second shrine, he is left feeling more hollow than he ever has since his transformation into an esk. Guilt weighs heavy on his heart, shame shackling his feet and dragging behind him with every step. The metaphorical burden is heavier than the physical snow; once again, he finds himself thinking, wishing he could simply go home. Tiredness dogs his path, looming from the corner of his vision, threatening to bring him down. It’s becoming more and more tempting to simply lie down in the snow; perhaps if he tucked himself into a ball, closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough, he could convince himself he was back home in his attic, warming himself by the greenhouse windows.

In fact, as he trudges along through the rising snow drifts, Renat can all but feel the heat on his back. He imagines it melting the snow until it runs as water in rivulets through his fur, collecting in small pools at his feet. Suddenly he doesn’t feel quite so cold nor quite so alone anymore; the warmth of his imagination is seeping into his body, creeping in and taking root deep inside of his soul.

But it doesn’t stop. The heat continues to grow until it’s uncomfortably high, suffocatingly so. The heat is burning him, choking him, not just melting but _evaporating_ the snow off of his back…

...and then he’s spiraling, and it’s as if the universe is pulsing all around him. _No_ , he has time to think, _not again, I can’t anymore_ , but it’s too late. He’s being pulled once again through time and space, and for a second his body is weightless and indistinct, floating through nothingness.

Before he’s dropped back to the earth.

Like both times before, the wind is howling at him from every direction. But whereas last time it had sent waves of cold snow to coat his body, this time it is something small and hard and sharp that greets him.

The first world had been nauseatingly green; the second world had been blindingly white; this third world is simply tan: sandy and brown and dull.

And then he realizes that it’s sand pelting him from every direction, tiny grains that scrape and tear and dig at his body. He squints and blinks, tucking his head to try to avoid the onslaught, but it’s no use. The wind howls, louder and louder and louder still -- but then, just as quickly as he’d been thrown into this unwelcoming place, it ends. The sandstorm widens and loses force, fading gently away into nothingness.

Blinking, Renat takes in his surroundings for the third time. As the wind dies away, he is greeted by a silence so profound it’s unsettling; the world hardly dares to move, as if in fear of breaking the spell. There is no sign of life in this strange new world, and Renat is merely a ghost observing its emptiness.

But as the wind fades into silence and the sandstorm subsides, the view is enough to make him breathless. He’s standing atop a ravine, and before him the cliffs drop steeply away to a craggy canyon below. The stone seems as if it was painted with all the colors of the sunset, each swirl signalling a paint stroke. The rock rises in pillars and columns, sentinels that strain to touch the sky -- but fall heartbreakingly short of their goal. It’s a somber thought, and also a sobering one.

Renat does not have long to admire the view. The call returns, stronger than ever and far more insistent. He nearly cries out against it, his very soul begging for release. _Just let me go home_ , he wants to tell it. _I can’t help you._

But the words don’t come; and he knows by now that the shrines wouldn’t have listened anyway.

Still he resists, fighting against the call for as long as he dares. When it tries to pull him down into the valley below, he digs his heels into the ground and sits. When it jerks him forward, he paces along the canyon’s rim. Everything around him tells him to go down, to brave the canyon and find the next token. But everything within him cries no, unwilling to witness the death of another shrine, to fail once more at the task he’s been transported for.

But with every passing second, the rope coiling around his heart grows more taut. The harder he resists, the stronger it pulls, until finally, _finally_ , he is forced to give in.

It points him directly downwards now, and it takes all of his strength to keep himself from tumbling down the cliff side. He’s an esk now, half a ghost; even knowing he cannot be hurt, old habits die hard, and the idea of being dashed against the rocks is sickening.

So instead he skids and slides, digging his feet into the ground to try to slow his momentum. Rocks tumble alongside him, knocked loose as he passes by.

After what feels like an eternity, he reaches the bottom in a cloud of dust and a shower of rocks.

But as the sand settles, Renat becomes aware of how quiet the world has become again. A shiver crawls down his spine, filled with the uncanny feeling that he’s being watched. The canyon walls are no longer rocky adventurers hoping to pierce the sky, but stone sentinels that watch carefully over his journey, as if waiting for _something._

The whole world is holding its breath, and he’s the only thing that moves.

He approaches the river cautiously, surprised to see his own reflection on the clear, mirror-like surface. It feels as if even the river is watching him, and his reflection as well: an alternate version of himself that looks on in silence. _Find the shrine_ , it seems to say, without a mouth and without a voice, _fix the token._

Renat looks away, turning into the invisible pull. This time when he submits himself to its call, following along the path it has seemed to carve out of the stone for him, there’s no hesitation or resistance. In its place is only determination: he _will_ get to the end of this journey, he vows.

And this time, he will control the outcome.

The call continues to ring inside of his soul, pulsing like a heartbeat that draws him forward, encouraging him on. Much like before, the tug grows stronger with every step: it’s as if it’s narrowing its focus, sharpening to a single point that pulls him ever closer. He races through the canyon, a ghost who leaves hardly a trace of his passing, his footsteps hardly stirring up dust or sand in his wake. The farther he runs, the faster too does he go.

Until finally he arrives, breathless and with eyes bright with fervor, at the foot of another shrine.

It casts its own reflection into the water, and as he looks he sees himself standing beside it. The sight emboldens him: he steps forward bravely, the call still beating strongly in his chest. The token this time is silent, but his intuition is not.

As he steps amongst the ruined pieces, his paws brushing over the shattered rock, something shifts inside of him; slowly at first, subtly. His energy is changing, pouring out of him like water through a broken glass. He doesn’t have the experience to guide him, only his instincts. As if from a trance, he channels his energy into the broken shrine pieces.

All the while the world waits, and he waits alongside it, with eyes rapturous and intent, a soul that’s hungry for change.

The broken pieces flow together like water; what was once a jumbled, incongruous mess lacking rhyme or reason becomes a glassy orb. It’s as if the pieces know where they belong, and fit themselves together like a jigsaw puzzle -- all they needed was his own energy to guide them. And when the pieces are sealed, and what was broken becomes whole again, Renat is not left feeling empty and tired like he was before, when he allowed the tokens to die. No, he is strengthened and rejuvenated, as if the shrine’s way of saying thank you is to make him feel whole once more, as well.

The world shudders, as if releasing a heavy burden from its shoulders.

Sound leeches back into the world like water through a desert. Renat can hear the river bubbling peacefully, the wind coursing overhead, whispering through the reeds growing besides the water and gliding down the walls of the canyon. All around him it is as if the world has gained new life, and its crying out for joy.

For the first time since this adventure started, Renat can almost feel something akin to peace, deep within his hollow heart.

 _You’ve done well_ , the wind finally tells him. And he is content at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Final word count: 1715**  
>  **AP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 34 AP (Writing: 1715 words)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +16 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 2)  
> +25 AP (Event Bonus) (+15 shattered peaks, +5 biome, +5 wordcount challenge)  
>  _Total AP per submission: 80_
> 
>  **GP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 17 GP (Writing: 1715 words)  
> +12 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 2)  
> +12 GP (Event Bonus) (+8 shattered peaks, +2 biome, +2 wordcount challenge)  
>  _Total GP per submission: 41_
> 
>  


	4. The Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [mountain biome event](https://sta.sh/0aab6m2wy0p)  
> 

Three mountains, three shrines, three decisions. Renat is exhausted from the day’s inexplicable journey, and yet, he is also content. Fixing the last shrine had filled him with a sense of peace and accomplishment: most of his life as an esk was filled with inaction and passivity, a sense of indecisiveness clouding his judgement.

It was nice to make a change for once; to do something (hopefully) for the better good.

For several long minutes, Renat is content to bask in his own self-accomplishment. It’s an unusual thing, a feeling  
utterly foreign to him; in fact, the lavender esk is more comfortable feeling nothing at all usually. This journey has had a profound effect on him, to have moved him to such a degree of emotion.

As the sun dips down lower in the horizon, the shadows painting the canyon walls deepened. The sun hid from view, and as the world began to darken, the air on the canyon floor began to grow colder. As the sun fades, so too does the esk’s high. 

Renat shivers, his fur puffing up against the drafty air. The stream bubbles happily beside him, filling the air with its sweet melody and lulling him into a dream-like state. Slowly his eyes begin to droop as waves of drowsiness begin to wash over him, wavering on the cusp of sleep. 

As the shrine pulses happily beside him and he drifts into subconsciousness, the heat of the canyon begins to fade. Water trickles out of the shrine, filling the stream from a never ending supply, providing life and energy to the plants that grow along the canyon’s floor. It’s a strange feeling, as if the shrine is thanking him in some way for fixing its token, providing a rejuvenating energy and a safe place to rest. 

He doesn’t mean to stay there long, however. As he finds himself drifting off to sleep, Renat jerks himself back to consciousness. The sun has lowered considerably; the air is cooler than is comfortable now, and the world around him is growing dark.

Still, he isn’t quite ready to leave. He feels at peace here, at the end of the river, where the shrine sings happily. He isn’t used to feeling so content, so at home. Even in his own boundary, Renat often feels out of place, a wallflower that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the wallpaper. 

But he can’t stay here forever. With a final look back at the shrine, the lavender esk pulls himself to his feet and turns around. It takes all of his will to start walking back the way he’d come.

 _Until next time_ , the wind whispers farewell in his ear as he takes the first few steps. 

One step at a time, he left the canyon behind him. And with every step, he could feel a bit of his peace fading like the wind; it was as if the shrine had been the source of his peace, of his comfort. Fixing it had given him a purpose, no matter how temporary, and he had achieved that purpose.

Now, as it disappeared from view when he went around a corner, he was back to being purposeless. Directionless.

Hollow.

The walls guarding his heart returned, emotion bleeding out of him like a torn artery. It wouldn’t take many more steps before he found himself to be just as empty as before, and with each step the memory of what he’d done here began to fade. It was all he could do to try to hang onto it, to keep it from slipping through his fingers, but it was like trying to grasp water, trying to stop the stream from flowing. He couldn’t stop it, just like he couldn’t stop what had happened to the second shrine…

He didn’t notice when the mist first appeared. He was too busy remembering the shrines, remembering his inaction at the first, his failure at the second, his success at the third. It had all felt so important at the time; but slowly, the memories were beginning to lose their color, their significance fading. It was all he could do to remember what had happened; but he could not for the life of him remember _why_. 

It wasn’t until the mist had grown so thick that it obscured his vision that he finally noticed. It had descended on him so subtly, creeping in at the corners, flooding the floor, that he hadn’t noticed at first. But now, it was impossible not to.

It twisted around the esk, weaving in and out of his legs, blinding him, tripping him. But he couldn’t help himself; his limbs seemed to move of their own accord, carrying him deeper and deeper into the mist. 

And then it started, the pulsing, the ringing, the tugging deep in his very soul.

 _There’s no place like home_ , the thought was wishful, spiteful even; he had no say either way, he’d finally learned that. 

And then the world was spinning around him, and each step felt like walking on a cloud. Renat had the strangely uncomfortable feeling of being compressed, of being forced through a space too small for him. Several long seconds later, it was over. 

The fog began to clear, and for a moment he was afraid to look. He hid his face stubbornly, until the last of the clouds had finally lifted - and then he dared, hoping beyond hope to see the familiar attic, with its slanting light and overgrown plants.

But he wasn’t home. 

He was at the top of a mountain, where the air was bitter and cold and thin. The ground dropped sharply away from him, and every where he looked was empty space and craggy peaks and a blue, blue sky looking over it all as witness. The world dipped away at the corners, curving ever so slightly, and way off in the distance the sky looked as if it was kissing the earth. 

Everything looked so bright and light and peaceful - so why was there a dark cloud hanging over his head, and a deep sense of foreboding? 

As the lavender esk sits there in contemplation, looking out over the mountains and valleys - the earth itself seems to move. The mountains are splitting, separating, forming a space between them; one of the twists, and suddenly Renat finds himself face to face with an esk.

He’s only seen a handful of other esk before; namely Babika, and those that would visit her greenhouse. He would watch them from the windows in his attic, a ghostly specter who had no desire to actually greet them, or interact with them. His life was a solitary one, better off alone.

Of the few esk he _had_ seen, however, he had never seen one quite like this.

The wanderer was massive, as large as the mountains that surrounded them. His eye alone was larger than Renat’s entire body: as he drew closer he towered over the lavender esk, casting a deep shadow over him.

Something in Renat told him he should run, or at the very least flinch. But he was hollow, and the words couldn’t stir a heart that wouldn’t beat.

The wanderer regards him with an air of quiet suspicion. The air is tense between them, taut with unease. It’s as if the wanderer is gauging him, analyzing him and his actions. Now is the time for judgement. But the lavender esk can hardly feel concerned; where Raaga’s emotions are subtle, Renat’s are all but nonexistent. 

“You have been on quite the journey,” Raaga finally breaks the silence, but his voice is anything but kind. “I do not know what took you to those shrines; it was not me.”

Renat does not answer him. A stray breeze stirs the mountains, whispering through his fur, but all else is quiet. He simply watches the larger esk with dark, masked eyes.

Raaga shakes his head. “I do not know what your intentions were, but you have greatly affected my mountains, stranger.”

 _Three shrines_ , the wind whispers. But Renat hadn’t done anything to the first two; he had tried, with the second, but failed. Had he not been there, the outcome would have been the same. He can still hear the mountains crying out, the trees sobbing as they succumbed to death. He can still see the way the token’s light slowly faded, taking with it the last of the grove’s energy and will to live.

He flinches, and says nothing. 

The tension in the air grows. 

“You fixed the last shrine,” the wanderer is growing more frustrated with the small esk, “can you tell me why?”

Renat doesn’t have an answer. He tries, he does: tries to think back, to remember his journey to the last shrine, the way the tug and pull had seemed to rip his heart into two.

But he only remembers the river, clear and cool, bubbling sweetly. Its song reverberates in his mind, but it seems so much more melancholic now than it had then.

He shakes his head.

The wanderer’s eyes narrow. “Then it is time for you to go.”

Raaga flicks his head as if in dismissal, and a strong wind pushes at the esk. It claws at his fur, lashing at his eyes, and its voice is no longer a whisper, but a command. _Come this way_ , it tells him, _I know the way home_. Home to his attic, where everything was dark and the light was filtered green by the plants. Home where everything was quiet, and nothing ever seemed to change, and there was no river to sing sweet lullabies to him.

The lavender esk turns his head away from the wind and shudders, but still it pushes and pulls. It’s easier to just give into it, rather than fight, so he submits almost-willingly. 

Step after step, he lets it turn him away from the craggy summit, away from the view of the mountains and the world. _Home_ , it reminds him, _you wanted to go home_.

“Watch your step, stranger,” the wanderer tells his retreating back. Something ominous in his tone makes it sound like a warning, and a shiver runs down the esk’s spine. “My mountains remember everything.”

The sky is turning dark, the clouds descending upon him like a veil. They writhe around his feet, coil about his face. It’s hard to see, but still the wind is pushing, its touch becoming more and more urgent. It’s voice is loud in his ear now, and incoherent; but still, it’s message is the same.

_Home._

Renat can feel the world converging upon him, and it seems as if the wind isn’t only pushing his body, but his soul, forcing him out of the mountains. He trips and stumbles, nearly falling down; but the wind catches him, shoving him forward again. He can’t stop, not even to fall; he can only keep moving forward. 

The ground changes from rock to wood underfoot, and the world continues to grow darker. Slowly the mist begins to clear, but it leaves his fur damp with vapor, as if the clouds had been crying and dumped their tears all over him.

The esk blinks, and the last of the fog vanishes. 

He’s alone in his attic again, and there are storm clouds outside. Thunder rumbles in the distance, rain and wind lashing at the windows. Wind howls through the broken window, reaching for him. Renat approaches it slowly, feeling rain drops strike his face. 

Even here the world is angry at him.

He closes his eyes, leaning into the rain. _There’s no place like home_ , he reminds himself.

But all he can think of is the river, and the song it sang to him. A song of thankfulness, but also sadness; although Renat had fixed the shrine, he had only prolonged the inevitable. Because all things must come to an end, good or bad.

There were too many things Renat couldn’t control, but here, home in his attic with only his memories for company, he could choose what to remember. 

And he would always remember the third shrine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Final word count: 2020**  
>  **AP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 40 AP (Writing: 2020 words)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +20 AP (NPC Bonus)  
> +25 AP (Event Bonus) (+15 shattered peaks, +5 biome, +5 wordcount challenge)  
> +20 AP (Esk Interaction Bonus: 10 AP * 2)  
> +16 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 2)  
>  _Total AP per submission: 126_
> 
>  **GP Breakdown**  
>  Base Score: 20 GP (Writing: 2020 words)  
> +12 GP (Event Bonus) (+8 shattered peaks, +2 biome, +2 wordcount challenge)  
> +12 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 2)  
>  _Total GP per submission: 44_
> 
>  


End file.
